


The Yellow Rose of Texas

by cratos_013



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: 2020 US Presidential Election, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, British Museum, Democrat, Flashbacks, Forbidden Love, Headcanon, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Retelling, Secret Relationship, Song Lyrics, Song: Your Song (Elton John)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 08:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28468146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cratos_013/pseuds/cratos_013
Summary: Do you want to live vicariously through Alex and Henry's relationship? Do you want to know what Henry was thinking when we were stuck in Alex's head? Do you want to know the true impact of Henry's yellow rose tie?If you do, this story might be for you.I retell Red, White and Royal Blue with my own little twist, and hopefully evoke some emotion in the process.Ps. Read to the very end for an interesting piece of context :)
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	The Yellow Rose of Texas

***** SPOILERS AND SWEARING *****

Alex navigated the V&A museum, trying his hardest to match Henry's pace: a soft-footed trail laid before him, perfected through years of wandering the museum halls. Ivory walls illuminated under the lights of an empty corridor, the statues frozen still in the quiet moment before the storm. The V&A was designed to let in natural light, but the two silhouettes had arrived in the dead of night with only the harsh, white, institutional lighting bearing down on them. Even still, the rooms radiated splendour. The ceiling flickered as they moved from room to room, a spatter of stars peeking through every hidden crevice of the scooped skylight. Alex was reminded of the night skies of Texas, camping in the woods with June and his parents. He had slept in an open grass field, the white of the galaxy spinning him off to sleep in a lucid haze of possibility. Now, stumbling through the V&A museum, Alex couldn't shake the irony of how artifacts acquired from years of British colonialism would make their way under a star-spangled banner. What could he say? He had an eye for symbolism.

They arrived back where they started, a vast atrium artistically arranged with dozens of white marble pieces, upright in pseudo-motion. Neptune and Triton grew swirling beards that danced under the nimble fingers of Bernini. Henry turned back, his blonde hair swishing to the side, cheeks glowing in anticipation. He continued on, leading them to the entrance of a concealed alcove where an intricately crafted choir screen stood, receding into a tight hollow. It was darker than the rest of the room, the architecture styled in the sacred domes of Brunelleschi and the swooping Baroque arches of the Vatican. Alex held his breath, enraptured at the sight.

"The Santa Chiara Chapel." Henry introduced, somewhat giddy. "My favourite part of the museum. It's secluded, so I always felt safer here, more private in a way. In the chapel, it was as if the crowds would never be able to reach me, and I could escape just for a little while before I reassumed my life. When I was younger, I used to fantasize about coming here with someone I loved and dancing the night away under the eye of the Blessed Mother Mary. You could say that voyeurism thrilled me at a young age. Mum and Bea always preferred the murals, but this chapel would always draw me back. I was quite an incessant child. Either way, I suppose it was just a phase of youthful delusion."

He hesitated, then pulled out his phone, fingers fumbling with the keys. A couple of seconds later, he placed it on the floor and the familiar melody of "Your Song" floated out of the tiny speaker. It was soothing to the ear, a contrast to the silence of the evening tide. The clear voice of Elton John hit the chapel walls at angles, echoes bouncing off in a prime acoustic mélange. Alex could feel his chest swell.

"You're not going to ask me if I know how to waltz?"

"Waltzing is overrated."

Taking Alex by the hand, Henry absorbed the music in his body, swaying back and forth to the rhythm of the keys. It reminded Alex of the day Henry had played for him in the palace, the lines of his face smooth and relaxed in a rare moment of peace. Eyes closed in the kaleidoscopic light of the holy enclave, Alex could feel a weight lift from Henry's shoulders. He wished he could capture it, freeze the Prince of England in mid-stride to create a symbol of eternal bliss. They stood there for 4 minutes, though it felt shorter, clinging onto each other in the soft shadows of the chapel walls. The song faded away and Henry opened his eyes, brows high in a wistful daze.

Alex stared into the blue sea of fate, deep and warm in the low light. He reached over to ruffle a patch of golden hair when, suddenly, the song transitioned from the light touch of piano to an upbeat banjo strum. Alex was caught off guard, but the edges of Henry's lips turned up, a sheepish grin spreading across his face.

"I didn't know that you listened to country music." Alex exhaled a laugh.

"You also thought my favourite author was Dickens," Henry said. "This song reminds me of you."  
  
Alex was Texas-born and Texas-raised, sprouted like a beanstalk from the hot, gritty dirt of the West. He had grown up in the suburbs of Austin, toddled around in Stetson hats and tiny, little cowboy boots before he even learned how to read. Henry's song had been taught to Alex in his third-grade music class, a group of stubbly-legged, wide-eyed children straining to keep a tune. The vague memory relaxed him as he felt the music. _A yellow rose of Texas going home again._

"The Yellow Rose" streamed up and outwards, expanding in the borrowed space of Italian sainthood; yearned to escape the confining bricked walls and retreat into the wide, starry night. It infiltrated centuries of stolen and commissioned artwork, leaped into faded frescoes, and glided across fluid carvings created by the Renaissance Humanists of 17th century Florence. Rich country tones rolled through the atrium, tracing its flow between every crease and crack in the rounded Carrara marble.

When they first arrived at the V&A, everything was so ornately designed that Alex had held his breath, fearful that a foreign presence would upset the delicate balance of the night. He couldn't shake the feeling that his Southern blood barred him from Henry's world, that it would spill out and corrode the royal fabric that held it all together if he dared to step too close. Somehow, however, "The Yellow Rose" fit into the balance like a puzzle piece. The smooth, swinging voice of his Texan roots enveloped the museum in the rough texture of desert sand, bringing Henry's static world to life in more ways than one. Alex felt at home with Henry by his side, caught in a state of total euphoria. He didn't even try to suppress his smile.

_There's a yellow rose in Texas,_   
_I'm going home to see._   
_Though other men have held her,_   
_Her heart belongs to me._

Alex remembered the night of the Young America Gala when he had kissed Nora under the frenzied bustle of booze and glitter. Everyone around him was moving in slow motion, caught in the post-countdown blur of another New Year's dream. He had looked up to see Henry take a swig of liquor and steal off into the night. And he had smiled. _Why had he smiled?_ A disoriented Alex recalled Henry standing alone in the garden, drunk and anxious. And he remembered the kiss. That first unforgettable kiss. Alex's heart leaped. One way or another, it would always belong to Henry.

Henry remembered the night very clearly. It had been a night of crisis for him. He remembered crying in the back of the car on his way back to the airport, Pez's hand on his back the only thing rooting him to reality. Henry was miserable. _He had messed everything up. How could he be so fucking stupid? He had just kissed Alex Claremont-Diaz square on the lips, and maybe he had imagined it, but Alex had actually kissed him back. Who was he to take advantage of someone when they were drunk out of their mind? Alex was in love with Nora. This was never supposed to happen. He was supposed to suppress it. He had always known he would have to suppress it. Ever since Rio. Rio. Rio._

Now they looked at each other underneath the gilded chapel dome. Never would Henry have imagined that that laughing boy on the boat who had taken his breath away all those years ago would be standing in front of him, loving him right back.

_You've travelled down some dusty roads,_   
_Slept out in the rain._   
_But this yellow rose is always here,_   
_When you come home again._

Alex could tell that Henry was thinking of the day he showed up at Kensington Palace, soaking wet and screaming to be let up. It was oh so very Rapunzel, the notion that nothing, not even a gaslighting, manipulative Mother Gothel could stand in between them. It preyed off their fears, the fragility of everything they stood for, and yet there they stood in spite of it. They were Rapunzel and Flynn, Pyramus and Thisbe, and they were so stupidly happy. Despite all the logical fallacies, the crazed whirlwind of months gone by, there was nothing in the world that could break them apart. The wall between them wouldn't fall, but they spoke nonetheless through an illusory crack, escaping the world through a single, golden strand of hair let down from an ivory tower.

_"Henry! Your Royal fucking Highness!"_ He had stood, yelling at the top of his lungs underneath the pouring rain. _"I fucking love you. You don't make it fucking easy but I'm fucking in love with you."_ Alex's memory blurred, burning with the fire of not knowing what the fuck he was about to do, only that if this was going to be the last night, he couldn't let himself go without feeling it again. The two of them clashed and collided, drowning each other out in the all-consuming darkness.

The next morning, Alex had awoken to muddy shoes and coffee on a silver plate. Watching Henry, on the phone with Shaan, his lips mouthing the word: _"Stay?",_ Alex had felt transcendent, set loose for the first time in what felt like eons. They spent two days together in elusive freedom, tangled up and holding on, not wanting to let go. And yet...

The dust of the airstrip lingered in Henry's mind. The kid was flying back to DC. "Casual" was officially out the window. Alex would always come back to him and he to Alex. It was physics, the unrelenting gravitational pull that kept them circling back to one another, every single time they left. It was the yellow rose of Texas, coming back home again.

And in the grandeur of the V&A, they were, indeed, home in each other's arms, swaying back and forth underneath a ribbed-ceiling and a celestial sea of stars.

_She knows I've done some hard time,_   
_You stumbled then you fell._   
_I just kept your pride from dying,_   
_You saved my soul from hell._

Alex's thoughts drifted back to the months of getting to know Henry, before the kiss, before everything. It was Christmas Eve. His parents were screaming at each other at the dinner table in a blaming game of whose fault it was that they weren't acting like a family. He remembered completely losing it all, a sudden moment of aggression sending him sprinting to his room for cover. Slamming the door behind him and keeled over on the floor, he forced in a series of ragged breaths that did nothing to calm his spinning head. Palms numbed from the shortage of oxygen, Alex had shakingly called Henry, who listened patiently on the other end. It was a comfort that had taken a while to get used to, but for which he now felt an eternal gratitude.

When Henry finally poured out his own heart over email (and it was a lot of heart), Alex had wanted to hold him so close that he could share his pain. He thought back to Rio, when he had been so convinced that Henry wanted nothing to do with him. And then that day in the children's hospital when he had finally discovered that all the douchey behaviour was because Henry had been stumbling through his first summer without both parents by his side. Alex and Henry understood each other not because they had the same problems, or because they were the same person on opposite sides of the globe. They understood because they knew how to read each other, how to calm the other down in moments of unparalleled distress. They needed each other and so they came together, against all odds and outrageous conspiracies.

Alex looked up into Henry's eyes and found them glimmering with hope. Maybe he did save Henry, but Henry definitely saved him first.

_There's a yellow rose in Texas,_   
_She knows the dues I've paid._   
_And I'm going home to tell her,_   
_I wish I'd never strayed._

Wimbledon 2020. The storage closet. Everything was falling apart. Tears hung in Henry's eyes as he took shuddering breaths, completely unhinged.

_"Fuck me."_ He had said, eyes wild and frenzied, so that's what Alex did.

They had stolen off from the crowds, snuck away to climb on top of each other in Henry's creaseless, white bedsheets. It had reminded Alex of the hotel room in Paris, a secret affair masked in a timeless evening haze. And as they lay there, Alex staring at the small soft points in Henry's spine, the conflict in the back of his head only grew.

_It's just temporary._ He had told himself. _He couldn't fall in love with Prince fucking Charming because Prince fucking Charming wasn't his to keep._ Henry belonged to the world, to England, and Alex wasn't a part of that.

_This could be the last time that he saw Henry like this, bareback and stretched across the bed in a pulse of vulnerability._ Although they had spent the night together before, this time seemed different. It was as if a spell had been cast on just the two of them, a bubble that could pop at any moment and send them spiralling back into their own separate lives. Alex imagined leaving the palace and returning to his life before he and Henry had kissed, campaigning for his mom and frantically climbing up the political ladder. His eye-bags would be heavy with sleep deprivation drowned out by gallons of caffeine, and he would be perfectly satisfied. He imagined himself at 30, the youngest man to ever step foot on the congress floor, finally bringing about the changes his heart yearned to create. A year ago it would have been all he ever wanted, but as his eyes fixated once more on the small dimples in Henry's lower back, he wasn't sure if he was willing to sacrifice this, whatever it was.

Henry dreamed about Alex, radiant like a drop of sunlight in a dark stretch of woods, and couldn't imagine ever letting go.

_You couldn't see beyond yourself,_   
_Your pain and wounded pride._   
_But now you know the truth is_   
_In the way you feel inside._

Utter joy. That had been the theme of the Texas trip: the White House Trio and the Prince of England walking barefoot on the beach, grilling steaks and laughing their heads off in the swirling summer breeze. A whiff of campfire smog stung their eyes as they sat around a crackling flame with embers all aglow. Alex remembered watching Henry splashing in the lake with June and Nora, his dad's familiar, wide smile flashing beside him. It was the perfect life coming together at last. He didn't need to hide anymore, and they didn't need to hide each other. Everything was immaculate, from the golden sunset receding gradually past the horizon to Henry's equally golden hair, messy and soaked from the shining waters of his childhood. Alex loved him, and there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it.

Then came the night of utter despair. For 23 years, Henry had practiced avoidance, trained himself to hold in his feelings until they burned callouses into the back of his brain. From the moment he was out of the womb, there had been things he was forced to hide, from his family, from the world, and now from Alex. He was so happy in Texas that it nearly killed him to think of returning home alone, but the lingering thought persisted in the back of his mind.It was inevitable that he would have to leave. Alex deserved more.

After the election, Alex could do whatever he wanted, but Henry knew that he would always end up back where he always was, trapped in a sphere of influence that he would never be able to escape. Alex could talk all about the fucking future and everything that could happen as soon as they got past the worst parts, but Henry knew that there was no getting past it. Royalty wasn't a flimsy, wooden barrier you could hack your way out of. It was all-consuming, a limiting reagent that dictated his entire life. 23 years ago, a baby was born and immediately swallowed, a claustrophobic mess in the depths of an iron-handed clutch. Alex catalyzed Henry's emotions, heightened every single one of his senses, but Henry couldn't lead him on. _It was better this way. Alex would look back on that one last summer day and realize that he had never really needed Henry anyway._

Thus, the prince had left, quietly, in the middle of the night, careful not to make a sound.

Of course, he did eventually come around again. Pyramus and Thisbe always did find their way back to one another in the end, even if it was under the blood-stained point of a mulberry sword. Now the two of them were alone, together, and awake. In holy British lands against the overlay of a deep night's slumber, they navigated the maze of the museum and stood with their feet on the hardwood floor, eyes glistening in the starlight. Neither of them said a word, but their hearts beat in unison.

_She's the diamond of the desert,_   
_She's the golden flower of spring,_   
_She's the yellow rose of Texas,_   
_She can make a man a king._

Henry caught Alex's curls underneath his fingers, made wild and soft by the warm Texan winds. And there, underneath the starry night sky, in between Henry's childhood relics, their lips meet.

_Yes the yellow rose of Texas,_   
_Can make a man a king._   
  
  
  


* * *  
  
  


**November 3rd, 2020**

Alex looked out into the crowd. Texas was a battleground state for the first time in decades, and you could feel it in the air. Above the high tensions of the night and his own beating heart, young children waved Claremont-Holleran 2020 flags on strong shoulders of hope. The crowd extended North, East, West, into the horizon. Far off in the distance, Alex saw teenagers standing on the back of old, rusty pickup trucks, a row of homemade signs flying above their heads like a flurry of wings outlining the golden hour of dusk.

In the months that he had worked on his mother's campaign, Alex had organized rallies and raised funds. He had Nora run numbers to gauge youth interest, made phone calls to find political backing in the most unexpected of places. Despite resolute opposition, he had campaigned in the red heart of Texas where most Democrats had never even bothered to visit before, and it had paid off.

Lometa cheered for his mom with a desperation that kicked his gears into overdrive. This was what he was made for. This was the Texas that he was proud of.

"Hey y'all," He stepped up to the stand. "I'm Alex, your first son."

His speech was short but impactful. June's signature touch engraved itself in the hearts of all who watched the rally, coast to coast and border to border. Alex felt the energy of the crowd like an electric spark that made his hair stand on edge. It all led to this moment, months of stress and build-up finally drifting off into the crisp evening air.

Out of the corner of his eye, Henry appeared, peering at him with regal pride. Alex waved to him to come up to the stand, and, although hesitantly, Henry strode in with the seasoned media confidence the world had come to know well. Cheers erupted from the thundering crowd below them as "History, Huh?" t-shirts created a chaotic palette of yellow and pink against the deep Democratic blue. A warm smile hung on Alex's face as he took it all in, jittery from the drinks he'd had before.

Suddenly, Nora and June ran in, beaming and breathless.

"They just called Texas! WE WON!"

Alex screamed, stumbling into the arms of those who gathered around him. He could barely see through the wetness of his eyes, but he could feel the touch of his sister, his mother, his friends. Ears ringing with the wonderful symphony of a million screaming voices, he turned his head to Henry, heart leaping out of his chest.

That's when he noticed Henry's tie. At first, it appeared to be a solid yellow, but upon closer inspection was tessellated with a pattern of wild roses that emitted a lustrous glow. The flowers were outlined with a satin border that glimmered under the bright stage lights. Alex looked up to see Henry's glinting eyes regarding him with a curious look.

"Yellow rose of Texas, is it? I heard it was a thing, thought it might be good luck." A goofy smirk ran across Henry's face.

Tears streamed down Alex's face as he leapt into the arms of the man he loved. He cried for his mom, he cried for Henry, but most of all he cried for the world that was about to be. The two of them collided once again under the harsh white lights of a thousand flashing cameras. An infinite sea of stars hung overhead, engulfed in rolling waves of possibility. This was it. This was the fucking future, and the yellow rose was finally free.

* * *

Afterword:

I loved "Red, White and Royal Blue" by Casey McQuiston. I loved it so much that I read it twice in just two months, and I loved it even more the second time around. During the reread, I annotated _a lot_. Most of these notes were my own thoughts that ran free in my head, jokes that I would make to myself based on the wording of the passages, or even little remarks that I would say to the characters if I could go inside their head. It was an interesting experience that I would recommend to try if you ever find yourself spinning with a head full of thoughts that you want to record. However, one part of the book stuck out to me on that second go-around that I realized was never really set up properly, and that was Henry's yellow rose tie. Sure, Alex had always stressed the importance of interesting fashion choices, but what was the significance of the yellow rose? Being the curious person that I am, I decided to deep dive into some research.

As I discovered, the yellow rose is indeed the unofficial state flower of Texas, and it is in fact a relatively well-known symbol of the state. I also discovered that the yellow rose originated in a song called "The Yellow Rose of Texas". Now, I didn't grow up in the States, but I did grow up in the rodeo capital of Canada, so I consider myself to have quite an affinity for country music and Western folk tunes. As I listened to multiple versions of the song, I discovered one that I especially loved, which was Johnny Lee and Lane Brody's "The Yellow Rose". I had this song on repeat for days, sang it in the shower, heard it ringing in my head as I tried to fall asleep, and through every verse I imagined Alex and Henry in the V&A, listening to this song and reflecting back on the duration of their relationship.

All my fantastical thoughts were disrupted, however, when I decided to search up the original "The Yellow Rose of Texas" on YouTube, and discovered that the top video result was an about-to-be-married couple walking down the aisle to the backdrop of a set of Confederate flags. Now, I know enough United States history to realize the implications of this, and it completely caught me off guard. I should have expected that a Southern folk song would have roots in racism and Civil War polarization, but I didn't, and that's entirely my bad. I had been listening to the new 2002 rewrite for days, and the lyrics had seemed fine to me, so I hadn't even tried to find out more. Nevertheless, I realized that I should probably look into the history of the song a little bit more if I planned to write an entire fanfiction around it.

Sure enough, after doing some more research, I discovered the original lyrics as well as the original context to which the song was initially widely disseminated. Originally written from the perspective of an African-American man's yearning to return home to his light-skinned girl, the song had been used as a minstrel tune in a popular Blackface show in the mid-19th century. The group known as Christy's Minstrels performed and later published the song, which had subsequently taken off into the mainstream. The things that the original song was used for were incredibly horrible and extremely racist. I was horrified to discover that I had been unknowingly supporting the legacy of these terrible people. However, as I kept reading on, I discovered a much more interesting and hopeful start to the story.

A folk legend tells the story of Emily D. West, a bi-racial Creole woman (although she was relatively light-skinned) whose actions during the Texas Revolution had directly led to the capture of Antonio López de Santa Anna, a renowned Mexican politician and general. By distracting Santa Anna during The Battle of San Jacinto, West provided the Texian army with the time they had needed to corner the Mexican troops and force them to retreat South of the Rio Grande river. It was this action that won the state of Texas the decisive battle of the Revolution, although tensions between the two parties would continue throughout much of the 19th-century.

Some say that "The Yellow Rose of Texas" was penned by a Black soldier who had been separated from his lover during the war, and that the song would later be associated with the legend of Emily West due to its similarity of subject. Although there is no clear record of this, I choose to believe it is true. It seems a no-brainer that the reason so many minstrel tunes drew parallels to traditional Creole dialects was because they owed their creation to the hands of Creole musicians, even if these musicians were largely uncredited. Black voices of the past have influenced the arts and changed the course of history, so it's better late than never that we acknowledge their contribution to the world in which we live and continue to tell their stories. Today, Emily West is commemorated as the namesake for the Emily Morgan Hotel, which sits in the heart of downtown San Antonio.

As you can tell, "The Yellow Rose of Texas" has been living in my mind rent-free for the past week. I wondered if it was appropriate to use this song in any kind of modern context, but eventually decided that in order to learn from history, we cannot shy away from it. This afterword serves to bring awareness to the racist origins of the song, but also to recognize the importance of the unnamed Black artists in the growing cultural movement of the Western world. As someone who has not gone through the American education system, I'm not sure how much of what I have mentioned here is common knowledge, so this might not even be news to many of you. Either way, I hope that this has been an educational experience for some of you out there, and that I have provided you with a little bit of insight into what went on behind the scenes of me writing this story.

I still really love the 2002 Lane Brody version of the song because I think really does mirror a lot of events that occurred throughout Alex and Henry's relationship, and I wanted to be able to share that listening experience with you. Hopefully, this last-stint effort of mine during this incredibly trying year will bring a little more joy into the next.

Cheers!

K

Ps. If you got to the end, thanks for reading! I know that I went off on a long tangent there and I'm appreciative that you actually stayed. Please check out @vkelleyart on Instagram. She is awesome and amazing and drew the fanart that inspired a large portion of this story!

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to learn more about Emily D. West:
> 
> https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/yellow-rose-texas-ironic-origins-state-song/
> 
> https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/texas-primer-the-yellow-rose-of-texas/
> 
> https://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/theyellow-rose-of-texas/
> 
> \- if you are interested, I also recommend looking up the Texas Revolution, it's pretty cool stuff :)


End file.
